Red’s Bar & Grill

We’re on holiday in the area and stumbled across this place. Staff are super friendly and helpful, the food is delicious and the portions are massive. The kids menu is excellent value. Watch out for the hot sauce on the devil burger! There are gluten free options too. 10/10 would recommend.

We've been eating at the Red Lion for the last year or so - their old menu was filled with interesting and well-executed ideas, and was incredibly good for gluten-free diets, which is a rare and valuable thing to have. I was genuinely quite excited to try the rebranded Red's. Unfortunately, the new branding and menu seems to be entirely money focused. Which I get, given the state of things for restaurants right now. But it's been executed really poorly. It's obvious that the place is cutting corners wherever possible. My wife's mozzarella sticks seemed to be cooked from frozen, and were "worse than Wetherspoons", which isn't exactly the hardest bar to meet. My coleslaw was almost devoid of flavour - they sell better stuff around the corner in Tesco. Even the condiments have gone down hill. Ketchup used to be brought over in a little dish and was Heinz - or something very close to it. Now it's vinegary, cheap, nasty stuff. A staff member implied the onion rings, too, are bought in - the sad result of which being that, like almost all of the sides, they are no longer gluten free. A real shame, given how good they used to be on that front. Fried chicken is also off the menu for gluten free eaters - again, something that was once a welcome treat. Instead I tried the devil sauce wings. They were spicy, yes, but had a really unpleasant (and again, vinegary) flavour. My wife tried the maple chicken wings, and was also very disappointed in how plain and uninteresting they tasted. It's frustrating to see a place that once did really interesting and innovative dishes decide to move into a more generic direction. Even more so that it's been done with such little skill or care. There are still plenty of gluten free options here - but they're all very straightforward now, with all the best dishes now restricted solely to those who can eat gluten. Everything else available always to be more or less the same as you can get everywhere else, only poorly executed. The staff remain excellent for service. One of them was very apologetic for the loss of GF options, but highlighted that the change in menu had 'doubled business overnight'. I can see the appeal of a brand new place in town doing diner-style American food. But if the quality remains at this level, I can't see first time visitors being that keen on a return.